Providing the opportunity for Clubs to talk – 2025 Club Networking Day

Published: September 19, 2025

Within our clubs we know that many hands make light work and more often than not a problem shared is a problem halved.  So each year we offer the opportunity for clubs to come together to meet other club volunteers, the SOA Board and staff and share the experiences from their clubs with others who may be a different size or area.

This year the focus of the annual Club Networking Day was on Lifelong Pathways within the
sport – i.e., the progression of an individual’s orienteering skills as well as providing personal
development opportunities for those who volunteer. Lifelong progression is one of the core
pillars of the SOA Strategy , hence this year’s focus, to build on discussions at previous club networking days that have focused on, the work we see many clubs doing to encourage newcomers into the sport. To support clubs’ thinking around how to help their members progress in lifelong ways, the SOA has developed both participation and volunteer pathways (SOA Lifetime Pathways Diagrams) which will be integrated into posted on the SOA website shortly.

Everyone present agreed that the day allowed useful discussions and it was helpful to meet, learn or swap ideas or find out others were having similar difficulties.  The main themes of the discussions held during the Day are summarised below.

Another Club Networking Day will be held next September. In the meantime, there are the monthly online evening Community Conversations which provide opportunities for members from clubs across the country to engage with each other around topics of shared interest.

Encouraging Progression by Adult & Junior Newcomers

The first topic of discussion for the day was how we can encourage adult and junior beginners to develop TD3/4 skills and help coaching within the sport.  The work which clubs have been doing to raise awareness and offer opportunities for newcomers to try the sport was acknowledged whilst discussion agreed that such opportunities through need to be complemented with the provision of training opportunities for follow up development.  The following points regarding this were discussed:-

  • Coaching for lower technical difficulties (TD1-3) could be held before events to then allow skills to be practiced at an event.
  • Clubs could work together to deliver coaching  to reduce the pressure on coaches.
  • Delivery of training e.g. the day before a large event encourages social opportunities for clubs.  
  • Should there be the opportunity for participants to ask for a buddy to shadow/ help them at an event? (perhaps with a box to tick on the online event pre-entry form)
  • We need more coaching/ training opportunities and fewer events to allow skills to be developed and built on in a non competitive arena. 
  • Training which would encourage all to levels of skill to attend is needed as well as coaching for the less experienced.  Creating opportunities across the levels of experience is ideal e.g. planning a course for the more experienced to train on which allows use of controls to develop the skills of those less experienced.
  • Potential for club training resource packs to be developed by SOA.
  • Potential for promotion of the BOF resource on how to shadow.
  • SOA delivery of adult beginner sessions to potentially be expanded in the wake of the Edinburgh and Aberdeen pilots in summer/autumn 2025, and perhaps a need for some TD3-4 level sessions to be delivered beyond the SEDS experience.

Developing and Supporting Club Volunteers

The second point of discussion was developing and supporting club volunteers.  Many clubs already provided crib sheets for volunteers to guide them through some of the volunteer positions (e.g. Organiser and planners) and used mentors to guide and support their members.  There are also documents summarising and providing guidance to organisers and planners in the Club Toolkit on the SOA website.  The SOA also provides training for potential organisers, planners, controllers, mentors and coaches within clubs details of which could be found in the Coaching & Volunteer section of the SOA website.  Discussion turned to the potential barriers to volunteering:-

  • Volunteers can be worried about not doing the job correctly/ expectations/ dont know what is involved/ see technology as a barrier/ don’t think they are good enough to fulfil a role.  Work needs to be done in educating on volunteer roles/ building confidence and helping volunteers into roles should they wish with support. Appointing Assistant roles on a regular basis could really help build understanding of what’s involved and confidence in being able to take on that role for a future event.
  • Work needs to be done in clubs and wider to educate potential volunteers on the benefits of volunteering – what do they get out of it – satisfaction, kudos, increased orienteering skills, knowledge of maps and more social?
  • Having socials can allow members to discuss roles, how to get involved and feel part of the club allowing them to want to volunteer.  
  • For controller positions we need to encourage women to volunteer as planners if we want more women controllers, and be clear about the time commitment which is seen as a barrier.
  • Need to make events simpler – not have too many volunteers if can reduce numbers so to allow to spread load over different events.
  • Have fewer smaller events/ training to reduce volunteer need and help people use it as a stepping stone to try volunteer roles.
  • The younger generation consider event planning and organising to be a lot of work and can be more reluctant to commit in case they miss out on other opportunities arising later.  How could younger volunteers be incentivised – e.g. should we consider payment in some instances?
  • Potential way to encourage volunteers:-
    • make entry on the day electronic only and so simply events
    • Volunteer t shirts
    • Potential incentive scheme
    • Give points in leagues for volunteering so no missing out
    • Provide free entry for anyone who takes on a bigger role
    • Have planner/ controller comments 
    • Updating BOF fixtures with who has volunteered for planning/ organising

Communicating to Members and More Widely

The third topic for the day was communication and how we communicate not only with our members but also non members about opportunities.  There were a lot of discussions about the various communication methods used and how successful each was in respect of the various groups.  The discussion could be summarised as follows:-

Members

  • Facebook – good for members but the age demographic was limited.  Could be members/ non member groups depending on club 
  • Whats App – used by quite a few clubs for different purposes with lots of sub groups (e.g., car-sharing, dot-watching and event closing dates), but potentially was not suitable for juniors due to safeguarding concerns.
  • Instagram – again limited age demographic but good for reaching a younger audiences
  • Newsletters – most were weekly and contained information on club events/ local events/ welcoming new members/ congratulations but need to ensure an appropriate
  • balance (e.g., avoid over- focussing on performance success
  • Welcoming committee
  • SPOND – for coaching as allowed communication with juniors/ adults/ coaches separately and appropriately whereas Whats App had the danger of numbers being visible.  Can be used for payments and registration but setting up had caused some issues and needed managing.

Non Members

  • Leaflets from Come and try it Events (CATI) -– hand out to facilitate follow-up by newcomers, e.g., with take away and use QR codes to link easily to club websites or Facebook pages
  • Printed posters to display locally in the run-up to events
  • Facebook paid-advert ‘boosting’ for of events, to help reach wider audiences
  • Working with local Active School Coordinators to get orienteering opportunities into
  • their newsletters
  • Placing articles on orienteering and opportunities to try it in free local newspapers
  • Requesting event info to be added to What’s On listing websites
  • Working with local journalists to get Newspaper articles on events and achievements etc
  • Newsletters for non-members, where newcomers have consented to follow-up emails about club activities

One suggestion was to highlight much more clearly for newcomers which events would be suitable for beginners. Club websites and events pages can be opaque for newcomers interested in the sport, and clear signposting would be very helpful for taking next steps to get involved. For example, a newcomer landing page on the SOA website which could incorporate a Come and Try it calendar and this will be explored.